Casual photographer learning new hobby. I want to learn how to take such amazingly beautiful bird shots as I am seeing so many of you guys posting. Gary, I especially like your work...any tips you (or any other posters) could give me. I have a 7D and 100-400L and a cheap $30 tripod that broke. I need to get a good tripod and monopod ( and heads) for birds, flowers and maybe landscapes. Don't want cheap any more but since I'm not a pro, I don't need a Rolls Royce. I don't mind paying for good quality. What do you use or recommend? Also, I've only shot jpegs ( I know I must learn to use RAW) and some pp with Canon's DPP. What do you use and how do you do any pp? I have been reading this forum for several months and am learning a lot from all of you, so this isn't meant only for Gary. Thanks everyone for your time to give advice and show case your work.

Casual photographer learning new hobby. I want to learn how to take such amazingly beautiful bird shots as I am seeing so many of you guys posting. Gary, I especially like your work...any tips you (or any other posters) could give me. I have a 7D and 100-400L and a cheap $30 tripod that broke. I need to get a good tripod and monopod ( and heads) for birds, flowers and maybe landscapes. Don't want cheap any more but since I'm not a pro, I don't need a Rolls Royce. I don't mind paying for good quality. What do you use or recommend? Also, I've only shot jpegs ( I know I must learn to use RAW) and some pp with Canon's DPP. What do you use and how do you do any pp? I have been reading this forum for several months and am learning a lot from all of you, so this isn't meant only for Gary. Thanks everyone for your time to give advice and show case your work.

The Lens and Cam should be good to start with for medium and large birds. For the small ones and difficult light you will at one point need to move up (1D IV or 1D X or 5D MK III with 500 or 600mm lens) but this a very expensive step.

For the tripod: I have this combination which is a real lightweight and small working horse:

This will be sufficient for uses with ALL normal lenses up to 300mm f2.8. Once you buy a really big lens you will need more support, but I would not buy it yet in your case as this gear is much heavier and bulkier and you will likely leave it at home more often if you don't already own the big lenses where it would be essential. Btw many pictures here are handheld, the trick is to use a little higher ISO and get the shutter down to 1/1000 (better 1/1600) sec or less (this is also good to stop bird motion - as these guys move quite fast most of the time) ... Hope this helps

Casual photographer learning new hobby. I want to learn how to take such amazingly beautiful bird shots as I am seeing so many of you guys posting. Gary, I especially like your work...any tips you (or any other posters) could give me. I have a 7D and 100-400L and a cheap $30 tripod that broke. I need to get a good tripod and monopod ( and heads) for birds, flowers and maybe landscapes. Don't want cheap any more but since I'm not a pro, I don't need a Rolls Royce. I don't mind paying for good quality. What do you use or recommend? Also, I've only shot jpegs ( I know I must learn to use RAW) and some pp with Canon's DPP. What do you use and how do you do any pp? I have been reading this forum for several months and am learning a lot from all of you, so this isn't meant only for Gary. Thanks everyone for your time to give advice and show case your work.

As for your "hobby", the largest impact on your work is composition, followed by proper light/exposure/technique. Equipment is AFTER all these. My best recommendation is to peruse the web and your local bookstore for many great books out there which are invaluable. I've been at this photography thing for more than 35 years and I still pick up books every couple months or so - there's always something else to learn. Sometimes it just one small tidbit which makes the entire book worth the purchase!

As for your "hobby", the largest impact on your work is composition, followed by proper light/exposure/technique...

I would add, "patience". Sometimes animals take forever to do something interesting. Planning and local knowledge of when animals are active, where the good sunsets are, when the boats come in, etc...is also a huge factor. Even general tidbits like, animals generally feed at dawn and dusk, and small birds are generally more active in the hour after a rainstorm, etc...

I would add, "patience". Sometimes animals take forever to do something interesting. Planning and local knowledge of when animals are active, where the good sunsets are, when the boats come in, etc...is also a huge factor. Even general tidbits like, animals generally feed at dawn and dusk, and small birds are generally more active in the hour after a rainstorm, etc...

Good points! And that patience can't be stressed enough - even when you are knowledgable about the surroundings, habits, etc. Almost every good photo of a bird, moose, bear, etc. I've taken was at a time when I was ready to give up or leave. I once went to Brooks River Falls to photograph bears and jumping salmon and waited an hour with no luck, got kicked off the viewing platform, then re-entered and stayed another hour and finally got the photo I wanted!

Casual photographer learning new hobby. I want to learn how to take such amazingly beautiful bird shots as I am seeing so many of you guys posting. Gary, I especially like your work...any tips you (or any other posters) could give me. I have a 7D and 100-400L and a cheap $30 tripod that broke. I need to get a good tripod and monopod ( and heads) for birds, flowers and maybe landscapes. Don't want cheap any more but since I'm not a pro, I don't need a Rolls Royce. I don't mind paying for good quality. What do you use or recommend? Also, I've only shot jpegs ( I know I must learn to use RAW) and some pp with Canon's DPP. What do you use and how do you do any pp? I have been reading this forum for several months and am learning a lot from all of you, so this isn't meant only for Gary. Thanks everyone for your time to give advice and show case your work.

As for your "hobby", the largest impact on your work is composition, followed by proper light/exposure/technique. Equipment is AFTER all these. My best recommendation is to peruse the web and your local bookstore for many great books out there which are invaluable. I've been at this photography thing for more than 35 years and I still pick up books every couple months or so - there's always something else to learn. Sometimes it just one small tidbit which makes the entire book worth the purchase!

Good luck.

For the lesser budget, but still good quality, have a look at Giottos tripods and Manfrotto (Bogen) or Giottos monopods.

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Thanks to everyone for your responses and advice. I will look into your suggestions for equipment and make a decision soon. The tips on technique and patience are appreciated. I've read on this forum that it's more the photographer who makes the masterpiece than the camera, so I will keep reading books and photo mags and forums like this to keep improving (along with a lot of time out shooting). I am awed by many of the images posted here and hope to capture some like those too one day.

Thanks to everyone for your responses and advice. I will look into your suggestions for equipment and make a decision soon. The tips on technique and patience are appreciated. I've read on this forum that it's more the photographer who makes the masterpiece than the camera, so I will keep reading books and photo mags and forums like this to keep improving (along with a lot of time out shooting). I am awed by many of the images posted here and hope to capture some like those too one day.

One other thing to be careful of is not to over-saturate your images in post processing. Nature photography and high levels of saturation don't really go together. The same goes for sharpening. Sharpening isn't a substitute for soft focusing. Less is often more for wildlife and in many cases you can often say the same compositionally. The objective is to make it look natural. If you look at all of Gary's images, they are all fairly neutral in terms of saturation.